Saturday, September 13, 2014

I'm surprised TS hasn't mentioned this yet, it's the type of thing he goes for
:

Although, pro-Gun Stickers have long been a welcome sign for criminals knowing that there were easy pickins and lots of money to be made stealing and selling those guns people buy to protect their families and homes. So, having a pro-Gun sticker of any kind is the something criminals and gun grabbers love seeing.

Just remember:

They're only your kids, besides you can always have some more. Although, cleaning up the bloody mess is a pain.

"Guns are so much important to being a christian today because there is
no other way to show people that you are filled with the love of lord
Jesus other than having a big gun collection" - Rev. Billy Ray
Smallcock

OK, this may be satire too, but you can never tell these days.

Ever think you may be taken for a ride while all these people who are telling you Bullshit are having a laugh at your exepense? Then again, I know someone who loves for us to have a laugh at his expense since he keeps posting comments.

1. Licensing of all gun owners which would include a penal background
check, a mental health background check, an eye exam, a written and
practical test and approval by the local authorities (may-issue
licensing).

2. Registration of all newly bought firearms which would need to be
renewed after three months and yearly thereafter by presenting the
paperwork and the weapon to the police.

3. Background checks on all purchases including private ones. This can be done at the local FFL dealer for a nominal fee.

4. Three day waiting period for all first purchases. (to be removed as unnecessary after rule 1)

A few years ago I wrote a post called The Famous 10%. It became one of
my most popular, arousing much animosity from the gun-rights fanatics
and frequently quoted and referred to by gun control advocates. I reposted it here.

Almost
immediately it became clear that I had been much too generous in the
assigning of percentages. Soon I was talking about 35% and not long
after that 50%

If you spent as much time as I do reading about
gun violence, I think you'd agree with me, unless, of course, you had a
personal agenda to protect.

Alcohol
abuse is difficult to define, but let's take a study that found that
30% of Americans abuse alcohol. That translates straight across the
board to gun owners. Please note that we're not including the regular,
normal drinkers, whom some believe should be disqualified as well.
These are the binge drinkers and the out-and-out alcoholics. That's 30% of gun owners who need to be disarmed for alcohol abuse.

Mental
disorders afflict many Americans. One conservative estimate says 22%
are sufferers. It may sound harsh, but if you have a mental condition
that requires medication for you to function in society, you cannot be
trusted with guns. That's another 22% of gun owners that need to be disarmed for mental illness.

Rage
and anger affects many people. Estimates say 7% of adults suffer from
Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). That's another 7% of gun owners that need to be disarmed for their anger problems.

FBI Crime Stats show
us that about 500,000 crimes are committed with a gun each year. Let's
say most are committed by criminals and only a small percentage by folks like this guy who had no previous felony convictions. Let's call it 1%. That's 1% of gun owners who need to be disarmed for turning bad.Stupidity and clumsiness affects many people. We frequently read stories like this one representing stupidity, and this one representing clumsiness. Let's be generous and say another 1% only. That's 1% of gun owners who need to be disarmed for stupidity or clumsiness.

Obviously
some of the marijuana and cocaine users also could be binge drinkers,
and some of the rage guys are fueled by alcohol, so we will have some
overlap.

Let's round it down to a nice even 50%. That's 50% of lawful gun owners who need to be disarmed.

Now,
before you attack me for being so anti-gun, please take note of the
fact that I believe in the rights of the other 50%. I don't think the
2nd Amendment has anything to do with it, being an obsolete, meaningless
and antiquated piece of writing, but I do believe that the other 50%
has every right to own and operate guns.

Comes from John Ball, who along with Wat Tyler were the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.

When you go about talking about Socialism and Collectivism, remember that it has earlier roots in Christian theology. Here's some 14th Century Collectivism for you.

'Ah, ye good people, the matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common, and that there be no villains nor gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve: whereby can they say or shew that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labour for that they dispend? They are clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise, and we be vestured with poor cloth: they have their wines, spices and good bread, and we have the drawing out of the chaff and drink water: they dwell in fair houses, and we have the pain and travail, rain and wind in the fields; and by that that cometh of our labours they keep and maintain their estates: we be called their bondmen, and without we do readily them service, we be beaten; and we have no sovereign to whom we may complain, nor that will hear us nor do us right.'

Missouri lawmakers expanded the
potential for teachers to bring guns to schools and for residents to
openly carry firearms, in a vote Thursday that capped a two-year effort
by the Republican-led Legislature to expand gun rights over the
objection of the Democratic governor.

The new law
will allow specially trained school employees to carry concealed guns on
campuses. It also allows anyone with a concealed weapons permit to
carry guns openly, even in cities or towns with bans against the open
carrying of firearms. The age to obtain a concealed weapons permit also
will drop from 21 to 19.

A more far-reaching measure that
sought to nullify federal gun control laws had died in the final hours
of the legislative session in May. Gov. Jay Nixon had vetoed a similar
bill last year that could have subjected federal officers to state
criminal charges and lawsuits for attempting to enforce federal gun
control laws.

The new
regulations, which this time garnered the two-thirds majority needed to
override Nixon's veto, take effect in about a month.

Oscar Pistorius has been found guilty of culpable homicide, after yesterday being cleared of murdering Reeva Steenkamp
on Valentine's Day last year. Reading from her written judgment, Judge
Thokozile Masipa told the court that there was not enough evidence to
prove beyond reasonable doubt that the athlete was guilty of
premeditated murder or murder. He was also found guilty on one firearms
charge, but acquitted on two others. Pistorius could face up to 15 years
in jail on the culpable homicide charge, but he will not be sentenced
until next month.Masipa recaps the four counts against Pistorius and her findings. She
repeats again that the state did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that
Pistorius was guilty of premeditated murder or murder. Today, she is
giving a detailed legal explanation of why she acquitted Pistorius of
murder dolus eventualis – a decision which received some criticism from legal experts yesterday. Finally, Masipa asks Pistorius to stand and announces:

Count one: not guilty of murdering Reeva Steenkamp, but guilty of culpable homicide

Count four: not guilty of firearms charge relating to possession of illegal ammunition

The second firearms charge faced by Pistorius relates to an incident in
January, before Steenkamp's death, when a Glock pistol went off while in
his possession in a Johannesburg restaurant called Tashas. Masipa says
Pistorius may not have intended to fire the gun, but this "does not
absolve" him from the crime of negligence. Masipa says she accepts in
full the evidence of state witness Kevin Lerena. Pistorius was trained
in firearms, she says. "He should not have asked for a firearm in a
restaurant full of patrons." The state has proved beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty on this count, says the judge.

But, also in typical form, he was not only not disarmed when he should have been, right up to the very end he was given the benefit of the every doubt, and then some. "Not enough evidence" to prove murder, sorta like O.J. He "may not have intended to fire the gun" in Tashas restaurant. As for "firing a gun out of an open car sunroof in September 2012," no problem since Darren Fresco was "not an impressive witness at all."

A travesty of justice took place on the world stage. Another unfit and dangerous gun owner, whining and crying with self-pity was not held properly accountable for the death of another.

I guess not basing arguments on actual facts is part of Conservativism 101.

The words are part of a well-worn favorite conservative passage known as the "Liberty Teeth" quote. It reads in its entirety:

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related. From the moment the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference; they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes; we need them every hour.

The quote is a hoax, and a well-known one. As Extra! pointed out ("The Right's Library of Fake Quotes," 4/10). It has been widely debunked, including in Playboy
magazine, where it had been quoted (12/95) and subsequently become the
subject of a lengthy correction (12/95), after the editor of the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia called it "either a complete fabrication or a case of misattribution.

The "liberty teeth" quote is so well known as a fraud that the pro-gun
Second Amendment Foundation, in inveighing against the use of bogus
quotes as "counterproductive," to the cause, cites it as the prime
example, and "perhaps the most infamous bogus saying attributed to a
Founding Father."

The Target Sports Range in Royal Oak, Michigan, after experiencing 12
suicide attempts in as many years, instituted a policy preventing
individuals from obtaining a gun if they are not known by range
instructors. A list of those denied access to a firearm is maintained;
those individuals will be turned away in the future.

City
Commissioner Peggy Goodwin praised the proactive response. “If these
were homicides, something would have been done after the first one.
Because it’s suicide no one wants to even talk about it. I want to talk
about preventing it.”

It isn’t just in Michigan. The Orange County
Register, using data from coroners’ reports, documented 64 suicides at
public ranges in three California counties in the 12-year period
studied. The common denominator is easy, unregulated access to a
firearm.

The Daily Times headline was: “Should firing ranges be
age-restricted?” What we know about brain development and function tells
us clearly the answer is “yes.” The last segment of the brain to be
fully developed and integrated into the rest of the brain’s functions is
the prefrontal area. This is where we learn to assess the long-term
implications of actions, control impulses and make basic value
judgments.

In some cases this development is not complete until
age 25. In the Arizona case, clearly accidental and not a failure of
judgment, brain maturation was probably not at fault. But with
range-related suicides of young people, it is.

Should we put
deadly weapons into the hands of young people at all? Is the wise
solution, as Arie Klapholz suggested, to “teach young persons to
properly use and respect guns and rifles?” One common reaction to the
suicide of a young person in a gun-owning household is “I don’t
understand it — he was trained to use guns safely.”

In the work we do at the Worcester County Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program, we have learned this the hard way.

With
rates of youth homicide and gun-related accidental deaths and youth
suicide on the rise, it is undeniably in society’s best interests to
keep guns out of the hands of young people.

I came upon this a few days ago and I sat on it a few days to get a chance to throw
some questions about it to a long time friend who recently retired as a state investigator in California.

"Kent
Williams, the vice
principal of Tevis Junior High School, was arrested on Aug. 28 when he
brought his handgun on to the Bakersfield, California, campus. An
unidentified school employee told district officials that Williams had a
gun in his backpack. Williams claimed that he carried the gun to
protect himself and students from possible danger (video below).
Williams, who has a concealed carry firearms permit, has filed a claim
(the first step to filing a lawsuit) against the City of Bakersfield and
the Bakersfield Police Department (BPD) for false arrest."

"According
to the BPD, officers thought that Williams may have violated the
California Gun Free Zone Act. However, Williams' case was dropped by the
Bakersfield district attorney's office."

"[The
police] tell [Williams], he has a
concealed weapons permit, everything seems in order and the higher up
said, arrest him anyway," Rodriguez told ABC 23. "Was it just
sloppiness, indifference, laziness? I don't know. What I do know, is
that you cannot have probable cause, if you have a mistake," stated
Rodriguez."

I got hold of my friend in California and asked how it was that the
charges ended up being dropped and he pointed me to this apparent
exception to the gun free
school law,

"(l) This section does not apply to a duly appointed peace officer
as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of
Part 2, a full-time paid peace officer of another state or the
federal government who is carrying out official duties while in
California, any person summoned by any of these officers to assist in
making arrests or preserving the peace while he or she is actually
engaged in assisting the officer, a member of the military forces of
this state or of the United States who is engaged in the performance
of his or her duties, a person holding a valid license to carry the
firearm pursuant to Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 26150) of
Division 5 of Title 4 of Part 6, or an armored vehicle guard, engaged
in the performance of his or her duties, as defined in subdivision
(e) of Section 7521 of the Business and Professions
Code."

My first thought is that this is heavy stuff, so far, it appears that
the only potential sanction he might get will be getting fired. At
first glance, this seems to put California's gun free school law on par
with Minnesota's carry permit law regarding carry in post secondary
schools, only it applies to ALL schools.

In Minnesota,
carry in post secondary schools is legal for permit holders, however,
the schools are allowed to ban carry by students and employees. So
while they couldn't be charged criminally, they could be fired or
expelled for breaking school rules.

I'm sure that
currently someone is
likely burning the midnight oil feverishly trying to find something to
charge this guy with. Especially with a potential false arrest suit in
the works. And he has apparently been armed in school since he got his
permit which if I remember from another article was in 2010.

All that being said, there is one aspect of this event which makes me
want to whack this guy upside the head to reset his thinking. Lets see
if anyone notices it. I'm betting/hoping its someone who carries who
answers first. I'll let Mike call the winner since he can likely see
who replies first. I've emailed Mike the answer that has been kept in a
#2 mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's back porch since noon today.

And no, its something besides the kneejerk answer of him having a gun in school.

The convicted killer of three Ohio students at a high school
cafeteria escaped from a prison Thursday night and a search was underway
in northwest Ohio, police said.

Nineteen-year-old T.J. Lane
escaped along with two other inmates from a prison in Lima, about 80
miles south of Toledo, and one of the inmates was captured, Lima police
Sgt. Andy Green said.A search was underway in woods and a
residential area near the prison, Green said, and the two escapees are
considered dangerous.

Lane, then 18, pleaded guilty last year to
shooting three students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east
of Cleveland. He said he didn't know why he did. At his sentencing, he
unbuttoned his dress shirt to reveal his T-shirt reading "killer"; he
cursed and gestured obscenely as he was given three life sentences.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

After looking at the clueless comments on the first post, it seems that something a little bit more to the point is necessary:

And I never said the Mayberry post was REAL, you are too clueless to get that at one time people didn't see guns as being the sacred symbols they have become in recent years. I know some concepts are complex for you, but try to get your heads around that one.

Most of the early resistance came from the left: in particular Socialist and Communist groups.

In Germany, Gestapo records reveal that approximately 800,000 Germans in a
population of more than 66 million were jailed for active resistance
during the Reich's 12-year reign. Indeed, the first concentration camps,
notably Dachau, built near Munich in 1933, were meant for left-wing
dissidents. In 1936, a typical year, 11,687 Germans were arrested for
illegal socialist activity,

according to Peter Hoffmann's standard 1977
study, ''The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945.''

A. J. P. Taylor, the respected British historian, declared in the 1960's that German
resistance to the Nazis was a myth, his was a widely held view. Even
today many people in Germany and elsewhere believe there was little
internal opposition to Hitler. Archives from Eastern European state security agencies which have been disproving this belief.

France during occupation was in the words of Charles Maurras, the theorist of reactionary France, the
'triumph of the true France' over Socialists, Communists, Jews,
Freemasons and all parliamentary, democratic traditions which were
roundly accused not just of precipitating defeat but of leading France
to decadence and catastrophe.

Initially almost all Resistance was urban-based: it was there that the
German presence was strongest; it was there that printing facilities
were available for tracts and newspapers, and it was there that the
traditions of working-class solidarity, revolutionary politics, and the
educational liberalisms of lycees and universities were most pronounced.

The movement was originally driven by an ideological opposition to Nazism and
Fascism, which brought individual Communists, Socialists and left-wing
Catholics and Protestants into the ranks of the 'dissidents', as
Resisters were initially known. They all felt they had to do something,
however small or impractical, to mark their opposition to the inertia of
Petainism which advised the French to return to their private lives
and leave the big decisions to Petain and Laval.

The cold war left out the role of the Socialists and Communists in the fight against Fascism, but recent scholarship is beginning to put it back in its rightful place in the study of World War II resistance movements.

An Iowa man angry about his property taxes was fatally shot during a
public meeting Tuesday after he pulled a gun from a briefcase and
pointed it at the county assessor, law enforcement officials said.Francis
Glaser, a former Maquoketa city manager, had become agitated and vocal
about his property taxes going up during a weekly meeting of Jackson
County's board of supervisors in Maquoketa, a town about 30 miles south
of Dubuque.Larry Koos, a county supervisor, struggled with the
gunman before the fatal shot. Jackson County Sheriff Russ Kettmann said
Koos "probably saved a life."Authorities didn't know whether the fatal shot was self-inflicted.Lawyers
and judges have pointed out inadequate security at Iowa courthouses for
years, and Thursday's shooting is the second high-profile incident at
an Iowa courthouse this year involving a firearm.

Let's start off with the founders were very familiar with the work of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes reasoned that this world of chaos created by unlimited rights was highly undesirable, since it would cause human life to be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". As such, if humans wish to live peacefully they must give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations in order to establish political and civil society. This is one of the earliest formulations of the theory of government known as the social contract.

In short, too many rights can create chaos. The founders did not want anarchy (or what they would call "democracy"). In fact, they saw republican systems as being somewhat more restrained, although the French revolution would prove that to be a fallacious belief.

On the other hand, one of the things tied in with natural rights is a right to life, which unlike the current one which ends at birth, this one BEGINS with birth. Natural rights begin with existence. The Declaration of Independence says that: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness."

John Locke stated the right to life as being that everyone has a right to life once created. The fundamental law of nature is
that human life, as much as possible, should be preserved. We could have a longer discussion of Locke, but his ideas are not supportive of a belief that natural law or natural rights would allow for the ownership of weapons. In fact, I would assert they seriously contradict that belief.

Contemporary statements at the time of the US's nascence show that the doctrine of self-defence required that force was used as a last resort and only allowed for as much force as was reasonably necessary to stop any threat. If one exceeded that level of force, then the person who was attacked became the aggressor [1]

The Constitution provides the right not to "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". While one can argue that acts of "self-defence" are not governmental actions, the way that the government addresses the use of that doctrine ARE.

The real issue when one claims a right, is what authority backs up that assertion? In the case of life, there are many international treaties that say killing without extraordinary justification is wrong. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US is a signatory, states "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Recently, the United Nations human rights committees overseeing the United States' obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as the International Convention to End all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) meeting in Geneva Switzerland both cited rampant gun violence in the United States as a violation of our government’s duty to effectively protect the right to life. Women, children and minorities were cited as disproportionately affected groups. Both treaties have been ratified by the U.S. Senate binding the US government to act.

Both committees recommended expanded background checks covering all private firearm transfers. Both also expressed concern about the proliferation of Stand Your Ground laws stating that these laws are used to “circumvent the limits of legitimate self-defense in violation of [the U.S. government's] duty to protect life”, and requested review of those laws “to remove far-reaching immunity and ensure strict adherence to the principles of necessity and proportionality when deadly force is used for self-defense.”

Albert Camus said "bloodthirsty laws, make bloodthirsty customs." While he was speaking specifically about state-sponsored executions, the tendency goes like this: once the citizens of the state allow their government to discipline its citizens by killing them, then killing citizens becomes a custom; the punishment becomes, then, customary, in Camus' sense of the word. The laws rise from the consent of the governed, and once in place, they start to do their job: determine the culture of the country. The state's custom then becomes a little more bloodthirsty because the state's laws allow us to slake our thirst for blood.

The real issue here is that rather than "gun rights", any proper appeal to natural law or fundamental law would more likely hold that the right to life is far more important than someone's need to own a gun. In fact, US law in recent times has perverted many concepts held in civilised nations regarding self-defence, right to life, and even the rule of law.

[1] Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws
of England, Book the Third, Chapter the First: Of the Redress of Private
Wrongs by the Mere Act of Parties p.3

The widow of a suburban
Philadelphia police officer fatally shot with a gun bought by a straw
purchaser filed a lawsuit Monday against the gun dealer that sold the
weapon two years ago.

The
lawsuit filed by Lynsay Fox alleges that In Site Firearms and Law
Enforcement Supplies knew or should have known that Michael Henry, the
man who bought the gun that killed Bradley Fox, was purchasing the gun
for someone else and that there was an "unreasonable and foreseeable
risk" that the handgun would be used to cause harm.

Bradley
Fox, a Plymouth Township police officer and Iraq War veteran, was
killed in September 2012 after a man he was pursuing shot him four
times. The shooter, Andrew Thomas, then fatally shot himself with a gun
purchased by Henry.

Henry
was sentenced to 20 to 66 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to
buying Thomas nine guns, six of which came from In Site, according to
the lawsuit.

"I
wish the man who murdered my husband never had access to a gun," she
said. "And I wish the gun store against whom I have brought my lawsuit
never sold to a straw purchaser the gun used to kill my husband. But
that gun store did sell that gun. And that sale led to my husband's
murder."

The straw purchases were paid for in cash, and Henry gave Thomas the guns in In Site's parking lot, according to the lawsuit.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

I'm sure you know about the mole (or moles) who have infiltrated your "closed" or "secret" groups.

Given my opinion for reading your comments and the fact that you THINK I have no idea of what your arguments against gun control might be.

Wouldn't it be a lark to find out I'm actually the mole: spewing the rubbish that you believe at you knowing all the time that it is sheer bollocks.

Got that:

SHEER BOLLOCKS

You're thinking you're so smart, while I'm having a laugh at you chasing your tails and proving what I have been saying all along: you're a bunch of idiots who couldn't tell your arses from a hole in the ground.

Seriously, you can't handle a computer--what makes you think you can handle a gun?

Then again, if I were a superhacker: I'd turn your pages into Teletubby fan sites with a heavy emphasis on Tinky-Winky.

It seems that someone glommed onto this section of the US Code, 18 U.S. Code §241, with the idea that it would apply to "the Second Amendment Right".

As if events post-Heller-McDonald haven't shown it was a bad idea to skirt the constitution and reinterpret the Second Amendment so that something which is the subject and deemed "necessary to the security of the free state" is no longer considered to be of any significance.

But, anyway, 10 minutes in a law library with enough legal research skills would show using this provision, 18 U.S. Code §241, to be silly. After all, it's in a section titled:

18 U.S. Code Chapter 13 - CIVIL RIGHTS

The federal rights which 18 U.S.C. § 241 aims to protect are the following:

the right of an arrested person to a trial to resolve the question of his/her guilt;

the right of a person charged with a crime to a trial to resolve the question of his/her guilt;

the right to testify at a trial;

the right to be free from unlawful violence committed under color of state law;

the right to travel freely within any of the states of the United States;

the right to be provided service in a restaurant or other places of public accommodation without considering the person’s race;
the right to worship as a person pleases;

the right to vote; and

the right to inform federal officials when there has been a violation of federal law.

Note that owning a gun is not part of this list.

Some people found this on findlaw, but didn't bother with looking at the notes, authorities, or caselaw. With the caselaw putting this seriously in the camp of the black civil rights movement: United States v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 563 (1968).

Anyway, you are better off going with Cornell's Legal Information Institute's version of this than Findlaw's text since LII gives more useful information for someone who has no idea of what they are doing. It cites to this under the authorities:

One thing's for sure: On the evening of March 31, 2014, Chris
Heben—former Navy SEAL, American patriot, and purveyor of motivational
workout videos and t-shirts—drove himself to a fire station with a
gunshot to his abdomen. Everything else, though, is bullshit.

Heben, a 44-year-old vet with a passing resemblance to Hugh Jackman,
had told police that he was shot by three racist black men after an
altercation in the parking lot of a grocery store near his home in Bath,
Ohio. The men's car had almost hit him, and he shouted at them about it
before heading into the store, he'd said.

That's when his account turned into a cipher for racial politics, and a mythical tale about his willpower. Via Raw Story:

Heben claimed that he went into the Mustard Seed grocery store, but returned to his car because he forgot his wallet.

That's when one of the men in the same car yelled, "You got a big mouth white boy. You need to learn some f*cking respect," and then shot him in the abdomen.

According to Heben's story, he plugged the bullet hole, and tried to
chase the men down in his car until he began to lose consciousness. So,
he stopped at a fire station for help.

Heben quickly recovered, but there were immediate questions about why
he hadn't called the police after his shooting. "I wanted to keep it on
the down low," he told one local news station.
"At that point in time, I did an immediate physical assessment and I
was still functioning. Plus, I wanted to chase after these guys. I'm
aggressive."

Heben became a cause celebre. He got extra exposure for the local auto dealer that had made him a paid spokesman. He went on radio and TV, including the interview above, to describe his ordeal. And he continued to market himself online.

But whatever promise any of his multiple careers held, they were halted last week when police said they had "overwhelming evidence" that Heben had made up his story of the shooting, and now faced criminal charges himself:

Heben, 44, has been charged with misdemeanor counts of falsification and obstruction of justice.

"We have overwhelming evidence based upon video, cell phone records
and interviews that the shooting did not occur in the West Market Plaza
and that Mr. Heben made false allegations to us," said Bath Township
Police Chief Mike McNeely.

A Killeen man charged with fatally shooting another man outside his home Friday is claiming the shooting was accidental.

John Hyon Dust, 40,
was charged with manslaughter after police said he shot 41-year-old
Danny Mac Carruthers of Harker Heights in the face Friday afternoon. The
shooting occurred outside Dust’s home while Carruthers was sitting in a
vehicle in the driveway in the 600 block of Turkey Trot Road in
Killeen.According to an arrest affidavit, Dust told
police he saw Carruthers in his driveway and “didn’t want him there.”
Dust said he grabbed his pistol, went outside and told Carruthers to
leave his driveway.Dust said he was pointing the gun at Carruthers
and “trying to scare him” when the gun went off. Dust also said he knew
the gun was loaded and he fired a warning shot in front of the car
immediately before Carruthers was shot, according to the affidavit.

Dust told police he called 911 immediately after Carruthers was shot.

Killeen police responded to the scene to find
Carruthers bleeding heavily from a wound to the face, but still
breathing. He was taken to Scott & White Hospital in Temple, where
he died early Saturday morning.

Dust told police Carruthers never left his vehicle, and the entire incident lasted about 15 seconds.Dust was arraigned on a second-degree felony
charge of manslaughter by Justice of the Peace Garland Potvin on
Saturday. Jail records showed he was still in custody in Bell County
Jail on $1 million bail as of Monday afternoon.

Both Dust and Carruthers had previous run-ins with the law.

Dust, identified as a bartender for Whiskey Creek
Saloon in Harker Heights and co-founder of a local food truck business
on social media, was arrested in March after Killeen police said they
found about 9 ounces of marijuana in his possession during a routine
traffic stop. Court records showed Dust was indicted on a state jail
felony drug possession charge in connection with the arrest, and the
case appeared to be ongoing at the time of the shooting.

The
bakery-cafe chain joins Starbucks, Chipotle, Target and a handful of
other restaurants and retailers in making such a request, which comes
amid an increasingly heated debate over the role of guns in public
places.

“Within our company, we strive to create Panera Warmth,"
the company said in a statement released Monday. "This warmth means
bakery-cafes where customers and associates feel comfortable and
welcome. To this end, we ask that guns not be brought into this
environment unless carried by an authorized law enforcement officer.
Panera respects the rights of gun owners, but asks our customers to help
preserve the environment we are working to create for our guests and
associates.”

Deputies
said the boy was reaching into the deputy's pants to get a snack while
they were at Wendy's at 2530 Blanding Blvd. when he jostled the gun,
causing it to discharge.

The child was slightly injured by a fragment that ricocheted off the floor and cut his legs and foot, deputies said.

A Wendy's employee also had minor injuries from the fragments but declined medical treatment.They said it was the deputy's private handgun, not a service weapon.

There was no affect on his work status, according to the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

Of course it will have no affect on his status. What's a little gun irresponsibility between Florida gun nuts and the cops.

What should happen is a lifetime ban on the owning and using of guns for this bumbling idiot of a gun owner. Chances are it's not his first offense and thanks to the nonchalance with which these incidents are met in Florida it won't be his last.

A Massachusetts man with a record of criminal history was sentenced
to 15 years in prison on gun possession charges, the U.S. Department of
Justice announced Friday.

Jermaine “Sin” Whindleton, 28, was convicted on April 9 following a
two-day jury trial where evidence of prior convictions was heard.
Because of his record, Whindleton received the enhanced minimum sentence
under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

Investigators from the Maine State Police and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives looked at Whindleton’s case and
presented the his rap sheet to the court, which included felony drug and
assault charges in Massachusetts and New York. In 2012, Whindleton
assaulted a drug associate Porter, Maine, by striking him on the back of
the head with the butt of a Mossberg 16 gauge pump-action shotgun, the
Justice Department said.

Whindleton sold cocaine to the victim, who complained of the drug’s quality before he was assaulted, The Sun Journal reported.

The reference is to this story in which the GOA went to bat for a white Neo-Nazi.

Army veteran Michael Keoughan, arrested in January while open carrying in Andrews, Texas, was found not guilty by a six-member jury this week.

Keoughan, 27, a member of a local gun rights group, Come and Take It,
was stopped by police while surveying the planned route for an upcoming
open carry walk in Andrews. Previously, a member of CATI had been arrested
by Andrews Police the prior November while open carrying in town. The
incident led CATI to open a dialog with local authorities and clear
later events with APD Chief Bud Jones.

However, when Keoughan began his walk on Main Street with a shotgun
slung over his back and a holstered black powder revolver in accordance
with Texas open carry laws, he was soon stopped and, in a shock to him,
arrested for “disorderly conduct for displaying a firearm in a manner to cause alarm.”

According to media reports
at the time of his arrest, Keoughan’s walk attracted a number of phone
calls to 911, and caused a nearby middle school put on lock-down.

“We didn’t know who he was, had no clue but we started getting a mass
number of phone calls,” Chief Jones said in January. “By displaying the
weapon, he caused undue alarm.”

After extensive interviews and in consultation with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, detectives have determined the shooting death of a 4 year old to be a tragic accident.

The investigation has determined that Geonna Bradley, 4, of the 1500 block of Mechanicsville Turnpike, was accidentally shot in the chest by another juvenile with a pellet rifle. Bradley was transported to the VCU Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

One of the largest U.S. gun control groups is launching a campaign
against gun dealers who sell weapons to criminals which include
protests and a slate of lawsuits.

Officials with the Brady
Center to Prevent Gun Violence on Friday said the campaign will also
include a code of conduct it will urge gun dealers nationwide to sign.
The first protest will be on Saturday in front of a gun store in the
suburbs of Chicago, which has been plagued with gun violence in recent
years.

The group's president, Dan Gross, said 60 percent of
guns used in crimes in the United States are sold by just 1 percent of
gun dealers, which will be the targets of the group's efforts.

“They
are the bad apples ... who skirt the strong and effective background
check laws, turn off video surveillance equipment (in gun shops), and
falsify sales records all to cover their tracks and improve their bottom
line,” Gross said during a telephone press conference from Chicago.

If you've noticed one thing about this series: it should be that the death of the child has led to the mother becoming involved in the movement to end gun violence.

That is very true about Mari Bailey whose son, Michael Hampson was shot and killed in 2004. Her son may have passed, but Mari keeps his memory alive.

Michael was shot and killed by someone who he thought was a friend.

Michael was attending culinary school that night — he dreamed of
becoming a chef — and he was supposed to be in school until 10:30 p.m.,
but the teacher dismissed the class 30 minutes early. Michael drove to a
friend’s house.

There were seven people at the house, including his
friend’s mom. The mom wanted to buy a new TV, so Michael volunteered to
take her to Wal-Mart since he was the only one with a car. While she was
getting ready, her son — he was also Michael’s friend — became angry.

No one knows what set him off, but he pulled a gun and pointed it at
everyone in the house. Eventually, the shooter aimed the gun at
Michael’s chest. He was about a foot away when he pulled the trigger.
The bullet went through my son’s chest and became lodged in a kitchen
cabinet. Michael collapsed, but he wasn’t dead.

Unfortunately, everyone in the house panicked and instead of calling
911, they made up a story and decided to hide the gun. It was then that
they finally called 911. I have no idea how long it took them to come up
with the story and hide the gun, but as they sat there trying to cover
up what had happened, Michael lay there, on a dirty kitchen floor,
bleeding from his chest and mouth.

When they finally called 911, the caller said, very nonchalantly, “My
homeboy’s been shot. Someone broke into the house and shot him.” Because
it was a crime scene, the paramedics were not allowed in to help
Michael. The police had to secure the scene.

Michael was taken to the trauma ICU at St. Joseph’s hospital where he was placed on life support. On the fourth day, the doctors started doing brain activity tests on
Michael. He was pronounced brain dead at 3:13 p.m. on August 21, 2004. I
worked with the Donor Network of Arizona to donate all of Michael’s
organs, tissue, bones, corneas, skin — everything viable was donated to
help save or improve the lives of more than 75 people.

Mari had to try and make sense of Michael’s death. She researched
how to prevent gun violence and came across the National Million Mom
March website. Mari wanted to stop another family from experiencing what She
had experienced. Mari started the Greater Phoenix Million Mom March chapter
a year after Michael was killed.

Anyone who knows Mari knows that she misses her son very much:

I miss hearing Michael’s voice. I miss his laughter. I miss his hugs and I miss his blue eyes. I miss him more than anything.

It definitely does not get easier. Though it has become easier to
keep my feelings bottled up so I can, somehow, cope, day-in and day-out,
the pain never goes away. Some days, the pain is so unbearable, you
feel like it will kill you. If you are lucky — with a lot of time and
grief work — the pain will become more gentle and that’s the best you
can ever hope for.